Learn Hangeul Part 1 : What Do I Do?

9 Oct , 2014

How to read Hangeul, actually?

Ok. Some of you might be wondering whether Hangeul is hard to learn or not. Or you already learn some Hangeul but sometimes you still find it confusing when you realized that ‘it doesn’t pronounced like it should be’. Another condition, some of you might have been questioning “what do I do to make myself be able to read and write Hangeul freely? I’ve been learning for awhile but I can’t remember them all”.

Hangeul Is (Not) Confusing

It’s good that you’re here. We try to help you to read Hangeul. Also we’ll share some tips along the Hangeul lesson goes, including on this post. So don’t worry~

Back to the ‘problems’ above. The first one was whether Hangeul is hard to learn or not. My answer is…no it’s not. From my personal perspective, there are some writing system that harder to learn such as Chinese Hanzi and Japanese writing system overall (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, and combining them altogether).

“Ew, does it mean that you’re saying that Chinese and Japanese are way better and cooler?” You know..what’s the point of judging what’s cooler and what’s not. If you’re passionate and want to learn something (of course, good things), who cares what people said about it? Furthermore, ‘cool’ is very relative. Everyone has different meaning and perception of what’s cool. So if you want to learn something, just learn it.

Another concern rises here. So…when we learn Korean, are we just need to learn Hangeul? I’m not gonna say no, but it’s not a ‘bold yes’. Koreans have ‘Hanja’, the Chinese character like Hanzi and Kanji. But isn’t heavily used if we compare it to Hangeul. Sometimes you’ll see some Hanja at some restaurant’s menu, some headlines on a newspaper, or official documents. But don’t worry, you can memorize some and will still survive if you go to Korea 😀

Conclusion, Hangeul is relatively easy to be learned.

The second case is about Hangeul which sometimes makes you confused. It’s true that Hangeul has some set of rules in writing and pronouncing things. But we can learn it one by one. Of course we will become distracted when we jump into several

And now the last one. There’s a fact that we should remember : language is not something that considered as a knowledge, but it’s a skill. So in order to use it fluently, you should use it often. You’ll drive better along the time goes, as you drive. Use it often. Write with Hangeul and try to read it every day.

Got the spirit? Ok.
The one that you should remember after reading this is this principle :
Hangeul is different. Don’t treat Hangeul as if they’re alphabet.

Hangeul Rule #1

Some of you might say “Of course. I’m not dumb. It’s clear that they’re different.”

This simple statement, on the contrary, has a deeper meaning. You should read the further interpretation later on lesson 2. So stay tuned and get ready to learn! 😀